affix
a morpheme or a meaningful part of a word that is attached before or after a root to
modify its meaning; a category that includes prefixes, suffixes and infixes.
*affricate
*a speech sound with features of both a fricative and a stop; in English /ch/ and /j/ are
afficates.
*affrication
*the pronunciation of /t/ as /ch/ in words such as "nature", and /d/ as /j/ in words such as
"educate".
alphabetic principle
the principle that letters are used to represent individual phonemes in the spoken word;
a critical insight for beginning reading and spelling.
alphabetic writing system
a system of symbols that represent each consonant and vowel sound in a language.
Anglo-Saxon
Old English, a Germanic language spoken in Britain before the invasion of the Norman
French in 1066.
base word
a free morpheme, usually of Anglo-Saxon origin, to which affixes can be added.
*bound morpheme
*a meaningful part of a word that makes words only in combination with other
morphemes; includes inflections, roots, prefixes, and derivational suffixes.
chunk
a group of letters, processed as a unit, that corresponds to a piece of a word, usually a
consonant cluster, rime pattern, syllable or morpheme.
closed sound
a consonant sound made by using the tongue, teeth, or lips to obstruct the air as it is
pushed through the vocal cavity.
cognate
a word in one language that shares a common ancestor and common meanings with a
word in another language.
closed syllable
a written syllable containing a single vowel letter that ends in one or more consonant;
the vowel sound is short.
cluster
adjacent consonants that appear before or after a vowel; a consonant blend.
*coarticulation
*speaking phonemes together so that the feature of each spreads to neighboring
phonemes and all the segments are joined into one linguistic unit (syllable).
concept
an idea that links other facts, words, and ideas together into a coherent whole.
consensus
agreement in the scientific community on specific truths that have emanated from a
series of studies about a specific problem or issue.
, consonant
a phoneme (speech sound) that is not a vowel and that is formed by obstructing the flow
of air with the teeth, lips or tongue; also called a "closed sound" in some instructional
programs; English has 25 consonant phonemes.
consonant cluster
adjacent consonants that appear before or after a vowel; a consonant blend.
consonant digraph
a two-letter combination that represents one speech sound that is not represented by
either letter alone.
consonant-le syllable
a written syllable found at the ends of words such as "dawdle", "single" and "rubble".
context
the language that surrounds a given word or phrase (linguistic context), or field of
meaningful associations that surrounds a given word or phrase (experiential context).
context processor
the neural networks that bring background knowledge and discourse to bear word
meanings are processed.
correlational studies
studies that show the strength of relationship between two or more variables, but that
ordinarily are not sufficient to prove a causal relationship between or among those
variables.
cross-sectional
a type of study that draws samples of students from different age groups or grade-level
groups.
cumulative instruction
teaching that proceeds in additive steps, building on what was previously taught.
decodable text
text in which a high proportion (i.e. 70-90%) of words comprise sound-symbol
relationships that have already been taught; used to provide practice with specific
decoding skills; a bridge between learning phonics and the application of phonics in
independent reading of text.
decoding
the ability to translate a word from print to speech, usually by employing knowledge of
sound-symbol correspondences; also the act of deciphering a new word by sounding it
out.
*deep alphabetic orthography
*a writing system that represents both phonemes and morphemes.
*derivational suffix
*a type of bound morpheme; a suffix- such as "-ity", "-ive", and "-ly" - that can change
the part of speech of the root or base word to which it is added.
dialects
mutually intelligible versions of the same language with systematic differences in
phonology; word use, and/or grammatical rules.
digraph
a two-letter combination (e.g., th, ph) that stands for a single phoneme in which neither
letter represents its usual sound.